Are you making the most of your Google Places listing? Please tell me you’ve at least heard of Google Places listings. It’s only one of the most popular ways people search for small businesses locally these days.

The sad fact of the matter is that small businesses are not using these opportunities wisely. When people click on these listings, they want the entire business at-a-glance, not just an address, a phone number and a Google map of your location. Here’s what I mean…

Wedding Planner

You’ve got 10 photos: use them! Get girls in dresses, flowers, cakes, favors, décor, destinations, limos, churches, musicians and maybe even a few photos of your building, office and yourself to personalize it further.
You also have 5 videos. Get testimonials from past brides. Conduct interviews with some of your vendors. Show a behind-the-scenes day in the life of a wedding planner. Reminisce about your own wedding and all the details that made it special. There is so much you can do here to brand yourself and surpass your competition.
Do not lose sight of the power of coupons. These days people not only look for deals. They expect them. You may offer money off or give a free gift as a token of your appreciation. Some wedding planners advertise a free consult too.
Reviews are a must! Offer incentives for past clients to give you the thumbs up. As a new feature, Google Places now allows business owners to comment back on review pages.

Florist

Add pictures of your most recent arrangements. Try to showcase diversity.
Include a behind-the-scenes video of a wedding floral display from start to finish. Show clips of flowers from different weddings if you can or just a collage of flower photos set to music. Share your expertise and talk about some of your favorite flowers to use for bridal bouquets. Talk about the different styles of bridal bouquets and corsages one might choose. Add value to your listing. You can then reuse these videos elsewhere.
Create a coupon that can be printed or brought in on a mobile phone
Ask past clients to write a review for your business

Photographer

You’ve got tons of pictures, undoubtedly, but try to showcase a variety of different locations and moments – the cake cutting, the first kiss as husband and wife, the father/daughter or mother/son dance, the bouquet toss, the ring exchange, the reception dancing, etc. Also try to capture the décor.
Show video testimonials. Talk about what equipment you’ll bring or what differentiates your business. Make a video of your favorite local locations you’ve shot. Create a short promotional video about all of your services and packages. If you do videography as well, include samples of that.
Offer exclusive coupons for Google Places users to see how your campaign performs.
Get reviews!

So whether you are a Wedding Planner, Florist, Photographer, Videographer, Limo Company, Horse Carriage Company, Entertainment Company, Jeweler, Venue, Bridal Shop, Atelier, whatever it is that you do in the wedding and bridal industry…Don’t let this marketing opportunity pass you by, you are a Wedding Pro! Get an edge on the competition.

Click here to get started!

I would love to stay connected with you. Please drop by and say “hello” on my Facebook wall HERE.

In service to you,

Larissa

Advertising your wedding planning business in the [insert big yawn here] Yellow Pages and Ye Olde Daily Newspaper?

In the words of a famous (balding) friend of Oprah’s, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Unless you live somewhere on the planet yet to be connected to the Internet, these old fashioned methods of advertising are just plain useless.

The demographic that makes up the majority of brides [unless you’re marketing solely to the nursing home sector] don’t normally use the Yellow Pages to find anything and they generally read their news online or on their mobile device [the same place they go instead of the phone book].

The way we do business has been rewritten in the past few years.

It’s all about making meaningful connections.

So let’s thing about how we might connect with these brides who are no longer flipping through newspapers or Yellow Pages thanks to their handy, stuck-to-them-like-glue mobile devices…

Ahah!

We use a new medium…the mobile devices themselves.

Sounds kind of brilliant doesn’t it?

Use the power of mobile media to connect with brides by sending them important reminders, updates about the status of their wedding, any new specials you’re offering so they can send referrals to you or just to check in on how they’re doing.

You can integrate your mobile media marketing campaign with social media too and make it even more fun and uber effective. [Yes, I said uber.]

Run contests! Place mobile phone advertisements to attract new brides and laser in on your local area.

Just take a minute and chew on these numbers [and remember that by the time you’re done chewing the numbers have likely climbed way up again]. For the last quarter of 2010, the following are the ratios in the United States of all mobile phone users:

•    iPhone – 6.75%
•    Android: 7.75%
•    Blackberry: 8.53%

And what do we know about people with phones like these?

They use the heck out of them.

Hop on that bandwagon! Ask me how.

Google Places For Wedding Pros

Wedding Planner

Florist

Photographer

Attracting Brides with Mobile Media Marketing

Ask Me

Certified Online Business Manager